ZEDpod, London, United Kingdom

An affordable housing solution

Great concept, one concern is that won't the car park fill up with the cars of all the people who live in the pods?

22/04/16
Nigel, Nottingham

Fumes and noise from vehicles.
Impact damage by vehicles.
Good idea

22/04/16
Bryan Thomas, Truro

Almost certainly not 'affordable' for most Londoners. Not a starter home for the masses. Definitely not a solution to the housing crisis unless there are a lot more surface car parks around than I have spotted. Would be a nice idea if they were 4 storeys or more. This sort of low level intervention can be a useful addition to housing provision. Well designed and all for some diversity but try not to claim the earth for a smidgeon of positivity.

A ZEDpod is an affordable starter home, which clusters to create a pop up village - providing homes that require no land (just air rights over existing parking lots) and have the potential for no net annual energy bills.

The Pod is built with high energy efficient performance standards, exceeding building regulations, and benefitting occupants with a home that has inherently low running costs.

Further benefits arise from the factory prefabrication of the pod, which significantly increases speed of construction without affecting the durability of the pod. It is a durable, permanent construction, but can be easily relocated with minimal wastage if a site is redeveloped in future.

The main distinguishing feature of the pods is that they can be installed on elevated platforms above outdoor car parks, thus gaining access to previously underutilised space in and around city centres and avoiding the need to purchase land.

The ZED Pod is a small, low cost, energy efficient home particularly intended to provide affordable housing for the rental market and as a starter home for young professionals, single or couples wishing to get on to the property ladder. We have seen particular interest in providing a housing solution for nurses and junior doctors in hospitals. The flexibility of the POD extends to the potential for the single units to be combined as double pods, creating two bed units.

The Pods have integrated solar photo-voltaic panels which, in enough numbers, can create a solar farm without the loss of agricultural land. Over the lifetime of the project it is anticipated that larger ZED Pod communities could have no net carbon footprint and could repay both the carbon footprint of the original construction, plus the annual maintenance and annual energy needed to run the homes.

The homes are energy efficient, and are built out of durable materials avoiding the urethane foams, UPVC windows, high VOC paints and plastic water vapour barriers found in much conventional affordable home construction today. Water saving showers and taps are fitted as standard.

The pods are designed to be forklifted into place with very little site works needed so that, although they are durable and long life buildings, they can also be moved and relocated with near zero waste.

The pods may be considered as an immediately implementable solution to solving the affordable homes crisis in many cities in the South of the UK.